


They Come Like Ghosts

by Swordsoul2000



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, Introspection, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 08:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swordsoul2000/pseuds/Swordsoul2000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They all come to the Wall for different reasons...</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Come Like Ghosts

They all come to the Wall for different reasons. To survive, to eat, to escape, to forget, to disappear, to make a difference, they've all got their stories of why they came. Nobody asks what those stories are, just like nobody brings up the fact that at least half of the names the men call each other are false. They do their work, they choke down the rations they are issued and if it isn't always enough...well, a little hunger helps keep you numb, keeps you from focusing on anything more than the next guider, the next rivet, the next weld, or the next patch of concrete. They move on when each section of the Wall is complete, and never question it when men they've worked side by side with fail to show up at the next job-site. 

But even so, there are some who catch the eye. There's this one dude, blond, medium height, is one such, even though he's quiet and generally keeps to himself, his blue eyes haunted, as if he'd seen things no one was ever meant to see. He knows how to handle himself in a fight too. The few times drunks have messed with him after shift, he'd had them moaning on the ground in two seconds flat. Or the time two wall workers started harassing a local woman – those thugs had never known what hit them. He's been with the crews for three years now, when the Walls started going up, and gone by half a dozen names that you can think of (not that that's all that unusual here at the Wall) but for some reason his face pricks at your memory. Like you know it from somewhere, but can't put your finger on exactly where it was.

He goes up high whenever there's an opportunity, and that's just crazy. The footing's treacherous up there, and the safety gear is more of a suggestion than an actual fact. Plenty have plummeted to their deaths, but guys keep signing up – mostly because those who go up high get extra rations, and that can be critical for guys with families, but this guy doesn't have anyone. He's let enough slip over the years that you know he's lost his entire family – parents, siblings, the works, more than likely the Kaijiu are responsible, but no one is asking for details – and none of the girls who follow the Wall plying their trade have been able to hook him for more than a night here and there. 

Then one day, you see it: he's up top as usual, you're below him by a fair margin, and you happen to glance up at him just at the right moment. He's not working, just staring out into the harbor, when he glances to the right and shifts his weight, as if he means to walk right out into the air. He catches himself just in time, snagging a guider with both hands before he topples over. You see his face as he glances down, collecting himself after his near miss. It's a study in longing, confusion, guilt, and a loss that goes so deep you have to catch your breath at the sight of it. 

He gets back to work then, before the foreman can see him shirking work and gets on his case about it. You do the same, but something about this dude is bugging you now even more than ever. It's not the near miss – Lord knows enough crazies have taken the top positions simply to say goodbye to this hopeless world in as dramatic fashion as possible. Some of them even had second thoughts when it came time to bid the world adieu. It's not even the look on his face afterward. They all have their sob stories, even if those stories aren't shared. The guy's eyes are enough to clue in even the most uninterested observer that his story is more intense than most.

What's bugging you is the look to the side, just before the guy caught himself – like he expected someone to be standing there, right next to him, when he's the highest person on the crew. Not only that, but the guider that saved him was to his left, so it wasn't that that had snapped him out of whatever daydream had almost gotten him killed. 

Eventually it occurs to you that the top of the Wall is about the height of a Jaeger Conn-Pod – the fancy term for the pilots cockpit according to your nephew. And there's only one Jaeger pilot in the world who doesn't have a partner, even with the Jaeger's dropping like flies these days – Raleigh Becket. 

No wonder his face had seemed to be so familiar: your nephew used to worship Gipsy Danger and her pilots, had been crushed for months after Gipsy fell five years back and the elder Becket brother died. Of course, that was back when you had a nephew. Four years ago, the first Category IV kaiju to hit the US had made landfall near his hometown of Santa Barbara California. Demonic Angel, the Jaeger on duty, had been overwhelmed early in the attack and had been destroyed, her pilots killed instantly. In the half an hour it had taken to deploy other Jaegers against it, some 40,000 lives had been lost, including your sister and her entire family. 

Kaiju. 

You lose interest in Raleigh Becket after that. Maybe he was a Jaeger pilot once, but he's here now. The Jaeger program is on its last legs, what with the way Jaegers all over the world have been falling. It's no longer a viable way to protect humanity, everyone knows that. The Wall is humanity's best defense, all the experts are agreed. 

And it is, until a Category IV tears through the Sydney Wall like it's tissue paper. You stare at the image on the small television in the cramped canteen in numb shock and horror. Sydney's Wall had been complete for over a year now. The Wall here isn't even half constructed. Almost against your will, your eyes snap to Raleigh Becket as the Australian Jeager pilot publicly blames the program's failure on substandard pilots.

The former pilot doesn't say a word, merely heads outside where the steadily growing 'thump-thump' of an approaching helicopter can be heard. 'Almost as if he were expecting it,' you think uneasily to yourself as you follow him out. 

You keep back with everyone else as the helicopter lands right in front of Becket – too far away to hear what he discusses with the tall, dark-skinned man in the sharply pressed uniform under a long coat who gets out of the helicopter, but you can guess. He wants Becket back in the saddle, back in a Jaeger. Becket isn't having it though. At one point he shakes his head and turns to leave, turns to head back to the massive waste of time and fruitless effort of the Wall – but the new guy calls out something that is obviously a challenge. 

Becket stops dead, turns to stare at the newcomer sharply. Eventually he nods. He's in. 

The foreman chivvies them all back to work eventually, though no one is surprised that Becket doesn't show. When they get back to the bunkhouse after shift, his few belongings – a few extra clothes and a stack of photographs – are gone. Nobody talks about it, but everyone is wondering: How can humanity survive? The Wall obviously doesn't work, and there can't be more than 3 or 4 Jaegers left operational in the whole world.

You don't know the answer, you don't know if Raleigh Becket knows the answer. But one thing you do know is this: everyone comes to the Wall for their own reasons. Once they're there, everyone stays for their own reasons. Raleigh Becket just found his reason to leave.

**Author's Note:**

> Not really sure what this is about. Just a plot bunny that latched on to me and refused to let go until it worked itself out. Persistent little bugger too, frequently ambushing me at work or just before I go to sleep. Trying out the second person writing style for a change. Let me know how it works out.
> 
> And yes, I know that Demonic Angel isn't an official Jaeger, but I wrote this before reading the novilization and I needed a Jaeger name that sounded cool and semi- plausible. Sue me


End file.
